I work in a legal capacity and teach part-time in a legal studies program. One of the things I am supposed to teach is critical thinking, which is the ability to tear apart or construct arguments, using logic and proof. Critical thinking is a difficult practice to convey to students. It involves setting aside preconceptions, examining various points of view, and even worse, doing hard work.
Making critical thinking more difficult for me to teach is the fact that I am not a logical person. I studied logic. It didn't move me. I am by temperament or nature or whatever more of an intuitive, leap into the unknown, connect the dots scattered far apart in space kind of thinker. To me, thinking is as much play as determination. Yes, I am Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw, but not what you'd expect from the brochure.
I just want to submit that logic isn't everything. There are many learning styles and approaches to so-called truth, for example, parables and painting and music. And speaking as a legal professional who lives with a librarian, the Internet can lead you astray as often as it can set you free, especially as Big Media takes over (shades of Luna).
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Date: 2005-09-07 10:32 pm (UTC)Making critical thinking more difficult for me to teach is the fact that I am not a logical person. I studied logic. It didn't move me. I am by temperament or nature or whatever more of an intuitive, leap into the unknown, connect the dots scattered far apart in space kind of thinker. To me, thinking is as much play as determination. Yes, I am Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw, but not what you'd expect from the brochure.
I just want to submit that logic isn't everything. There are many learning styles and approaches to so-called truth, for example, parables and painting and music. And speaking as a legal professional who lives with a librarian, the Internet can lead you astray as often as it can set you free, especially as Big Media takes over (shades of Luna).